Published 8 September 2026
A new launch 3 bedroom condo cost more per square foot than a resale one in every region in all nine years
By Realila
A three-bedroom is the family flat of the private market, and the choice at the showflat is the same one every buyer faces: the new one or the older one down the road. The rest of the three-bedroom picture is on the three-bedroom condo guide: what it costs, what it rents for, what it yields and how big it is.
In 2025 a resale three-bedroom sold for a median $2,050,000 and a new launch for $2,496,000, 21.8% more. That gap is real, and per square foot it is much larger and much older than it looks. A new launch three-bedroom has cost more per square foot than a resale one in every region in every year from 2017 to 2025. Twenty-seven region-years, twenty-seven times the new one costs more, by between 29.3% and 63.9%.
The total price says something different in the CCR, and it says it because of size. A CCR new launch three-bedroom is about 1,012 sqft; a CCR resale one is 1,437 sqft. On total price the new launch there looks cheaper in five of the nine years. Per square foot it costs 35.1% more.
Key takeaways
- A new launch cost more per square foot than a resale in all twenty-seven region-years, by 29.3% to 63.9%. The square foot test
- On total price the gap grew from about 1.8% in the RCR and minus 1.2% in the OCR in 2017 to 17.0% and 26.2% in 2025. How the gap widened
- In the CCR the new launch is cheaper on total price in five of nine years and dearer per square foot in all nine. The difference is 425 sqft. Why the CCR reads backwards
- A new launch three-bedroom is about a thousand square feet in every region; a resale one is 1,195 to 1,437. What you get for the money
What a three-bedroom costs
Median transacted price in 2025, private condominiums and apartments.
| Region | Resale | New launch | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outside Central | $1,735,000 | $2,189,500 | +26.2% |
| Rest of Central | $2,240,000 | $2,620,500 | +17.0% |
| Core Central | $3,180,000 | $3,012,000 | −5.3% |
The median is the middle. Working to a budget, the range matters more. Resale prices, purchases from January 2024:
| Region | 5% pay less than | Median | 5% pay more than |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outside Central | $1,200,000 | $1,700,000 | $2,688,888 |
| Rest of Central | $1,500,311 | $2,240,000 | $3,508,250 |
| Core Central | $1,920,500 | $3,180,000 | $6,044,000 |
And new launches over the same window:
| Region | 5% pay less than | Median | 5% pay more than |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outside Central | $1,701,835 | $2,237,000 | $3,053,200 |
| Rest of Central | $1,873,700 | $2,667,000 | $3,621,300 |
| Core Central | $2,428,000 | $3,108,500 | $4,990,000 |
The two markets barely overlap outside central. The cheapest twentieth of new launches there starts at $1,701,835, which is above the median resale of $1,700,000. In the CCR they overlap heavily, because the resale range is enormous, $1.9 million to $6 million.
How the gap widened
How much more a new launch three-bedroom costs than a resale one, in total price.
- OCR (suburban)
- RCR (city fringe)
- CCR (prime)
| Region | 2017 | 2021 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outside Central | −1.2% | +21.0% | +26.2% |
| Rest of Central | +1.8% | +11.0% | +17.0% |
| Core Central | −6.9% | −2.0% | −5.3% |
Outside central and on the city fringe the story is the same one the two-bedroom market told. A new three-bedroom cost about what a resale one did in 2017. The gap opened from 2020, peaked at 44.2% outside central in 2023, and has narrowed since to 26.2%.
The CCR does not follow, and its line swings from minus 7.0% to plus 36.8% with no direction in it. Prime new launches are few, 107 to 571 sales a year against 1,599 to 3,347 resales outside central, so one project moves the median. The next section explains what the CCR line is actually measuring.
Per square foot, the new one has always cost more
The total price compares two different homes. Per square foot compares the same thing.
2017
| Region | Resale | New launch | New costs more by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outside Central | $914 | $1,210 | +32.4% |
| Rest of Central | $1,153 | $1,513 | +31.2% |
| Core Central | $1,666 | $2,178 | +30.7% |
2025
| Region | Resale | New launch | New costs more by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outside Central | $1,489 | $2,242 | +50.6% |
| Rest of Central | $1,852 | $2,715 | +46.6% |
| Core Central | $2,243 | $3,031 | +35.1% |
- OCR (suburban)
- RCR (city fringe)
- CCR (prime)
Every year in between looks the same. In all twenty-seven region-years a new launch three-bedroom cost more per square foot than a resale one. The narrowest gap in the whole record is the RCR in 2019, at 29.3%; the widest is outside central in 2022, at 63.9%. There is no year and no region where the new one was the cheaper square foot.
At two bedrooms the same test also passed twenty-seven times, but its narrowest case was 15.2%. At three bedrooms the premium never gets close to closing. That comparison is the two-bedroom note's own measurement, not a second reading taken here.
Why the CCR reads backwards
A CCR new launch three-bedroom cost $3,012,000 in 2025 and a CCR resale one $3,180,000, so the resale is dearer by $168,000. Per square foot the new launch costs 35.1% more, $3,031 against $2,243.
Both are true because they are not the same home. The CCR resale three-bedroom has a median floor area of 1,437 sqft; the new launch has 1,012. The resale buyer is paying more in total for 425 sqft more space at a lower price per foot.
This is why the total-price line for the CCR should not be read as a discount on new launches. In five of the nine years it is negative, and in all nine years the new launch costs more per square foot.
What a new three-bedroom gives you
- OCR (suburban) new launch
- OCR (suburban) resale
- RCR (city fringe) new launch
- RCR (city fringe) resale
- CCR (prime) new launch
- CCR (prime) resale
| Median floor area, sqft | 2017 resale | 2017 new | 2025 resale | 2025 new |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outside Central | 1,270 | 969 | 1,195 | 969 |
| Rest of Central | 1,302 | 1,033 | 1,227 | 1,023 |
| Core Central | 1,496 | 1,044 | 1,437 | 1,012 |
A new three-bedroom is about a thousand square feet wherever it is built, and has been for nine years: 969 sqft outside central in both 2017 and 2025, 1,033 then 1,023 on the city fringe, 1,044 then 1,012 in prime. Unlike the two-bedroom, which shrank to 678 sqft over the period, the new three-bedroom has held its size.
The resale stock has shrunk instead, from 1,270 to 1,195 sqft outside central and 1,302 to 1,227 on the city fringe, as the compact three-bedrooms of the 2010s reach the resale market. So the size gap between new and resale has narrowed slightly, from about 300 sqft to about 225 outside central, while the price gap per square foot has widened.
What this does not tell you
- Whether either is worth it. A new home comes with a full lease, no wear, and the pick of units before the building exists. Whether that is worth 30% to 60% more per square foot is a judgement, not a number.
- What it rents for. The three-bedroom's rent and yield are a separate question and a separate note.
- What happens after you buy. In the two-bedroom series the mortgage rate and the stamp duty paid moved a buyer's return more than the choice of new or resale did.
- Your own home. These are middle values across hundreds of projects. Floor, facing, condition and project matter more for one unit than any median here.
Method and data notes. Sale data to 1 September 2026.
Transacted prices from URA caveat data for private condominiums and apartments, collective sales excluded, floor areas outside 200 to 6,000 sqft excluded, resales and new sales counted separately, 2017 to 2025. Bedroom count is resolved from the unit record. Year-on-year comparisons are made within each region and never across the national pool, because what sells where changes from year to year and moves a national median on its own. Medians are unrounded and the premium is computed from unrounded medians. Percentile figures cover purchases from January 2024 to 1 September 2026.
One exclusion this note does not apply. The two-bedroom notes drop unit records claiming more than 1,000 square feet per bedroom, on the reasoning that such a record has probably lost a bedroom. The instrument behind this note measures the caveat and does not read unit records, so there is no bedroom claim to test. Measured rather than assumed: 259 of the 40,422 resale caveats in this series carry that class, 0.64%, and none of the 24,100 new-launch caveats does. The class is proportionally smaller at three bedrooms than at two, because 3,000 sqft across three bedrooms is a genuinely large home rather than a mislabelled one.
Prime new-launch medians rest on 107 to 571 sales a year and can be moved by a single project. Sale data to 1 September 2026.
More from Realila
- Buying a 2 bedroom at launch beat buying the same condo later in 128 of 228 developments, and lost in most of the OCR
For two-bedroom condominiums, the buyer who bought in the launch year beat the buyer who waited one to four years for the same building in 128 of 228 developments on gain, and in 126 of 218 on return on the money put in. The advantage is a central-region one. In the CCR and RCR the launch buyer was ahead on both measures and by 6 to 23 percentage points a year on return; in the OCR the later buyer won more developments than the launch buyer, 49 of 90.
- A resale 2 bedroom condo returned more on the money put in than a new launch in every year from 2017 to 2021
For two-bedroom condominiums bought between 2017 and 2021 and resold from 2022, a resale unit returned more on the capital committed than a new launch bought in the same year, in every one of the five years and at every interest rate tested. At 2.5%, resale returned 11% to 15% a year and new launch 5% to 9%. In the CCR, new launches returned nothing or less on the money put in. Rent from the first month, paid at once against paid progressively, is most of the difference.
- 2 bedroom condo owners in Singapore made 21.7% on resale, 3 bedroom owners 33.7%
Of the condominiums bought and resold since 2020, two-bedroom owners made a median 21.7%, $230,000 over 8.3 years, and three-bedroom owners 33.7%, $450,000 over 9.6 years. The three-bedroom lost money less often in every region and every purchase window. The two-bedroom's one advantage is rent, a gross rental yield of 3.29% against 2.89%, and it is smaller than the price gap. Gross and before costs, price and rent together, the three-bedroom came out ahead.
Every number in this post comes from Realila Research, dated to when it was true. For now we publish research notes from the platform to answer the community's questions; the platform itself opens to the public later.
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